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<h1><a href="https://archiveofourown.org/works/27184321">Seven Devils</a> by <a class='authorlink' href='https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainLordAuditor/pseuds/CaptainLordAuditor'>CaptainLordAuditor</a></h1>

<table class="full">

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Earth 427-3 [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Category:</b></td><td>Batman (Comics), Gotham (TV)</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Genre:</b></td><td>Alternate Universe - Dark, Crossroads Deals &amp; Demons, Demonic Possession, Earth-3, Gen, Mirror Universe, alternate universe - alignment flip, that's the one, you know the evil guys are the good guys and vice versa</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Language:</b></td><td>English</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Status:</b></td><td>Completed</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Published:</b></td><td>2020-10-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Updated:</b></td><td>2020-10-25</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Packaged:</b></td><td>2021-05-09 04:26:57</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Rating:</b></td><td>General Audiences</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Warnings:</b></td><td>No Archive Warnings Apply</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Chapters:</b></td><td>1</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Words:</b></td><td>1,250</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Publisher:</b></td><td>archiveofourown.org</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Story URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/works/27184321</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Author URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/users/CaptainLordAuditor/pseuds/CaptainLordAuditor</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Summary:</b></td><td><div class="userstuff">
              <p>They say if you're willing to pay the price, Chaos lives at the crossroads in Gotham.</p>
            </div></td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series:</b></td><td>Earth 427-3 [1]</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Series URL:</b></td><td>https://archiveofourown.org/series/1984321</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Kudos:</b></td><td>10</td></tr>

<tr><td><b>Collections:</b></td><td>Batfam Halloween Week</td></tr>

</table>

<a name="section0001"><h2>Seven Devils</h2></a>
<div class="story"><div class="fff_chapter_notes fff_head_notes"><b>Author's Note:</b><blockquote class="userstuff">
      <p>This had a really cool font for the dialogue but it doesn't wanna display on browser so you get the boring bold instead. Also I realised after I finished it that idk if this 'counts' as batfamily, but......</p><p>for the prompt 'possession'.</p>
    </blockquote></div><div class="userstuff module">
    
    <p>There’s a reason you don’t go to the crossroads in the city.</p><p>But he <em> doesn’t have a choice. </em> Haly’s pitches their tent on a lot in the middle of Gotham, and he can’t take the RV out to the middle of nowhere without anyone noticing. If the wrong person notices, nothing he or his brother or Mary or John have done will mean <em> anything. </em> So he goes to the crossroads in the centre of the islands, where roads circle each other in an amulet the locals call the Four Circles. It is a crossroads, afterall; nobody goes <em> to </em> a roundabout. A thousand choices are made here every day as people pick their streets. What could be more liminal?</p><p>He does his summoning in the dead of night, when this city, unlike all the others, is silent and dark, a hushed slumber holding the world in a frozen stasis. From the corner of his eye he sees a flicker of fur as he sets his circle, but when he turns there’s nothing there. He pauses a moment, then continues with his work. He has to time this right.</p><p>He doesn’t have much to sacrifice, but he knows what he needs. Something precious to him - <em> his mother’s necklace, brought with her across the world </em> - something for his desire - <em> the elephant Mary’s mother sewed her sons from denim scraps </em>-  and blood. The deep red flows over his pale hands to stain the salt of the circle when he kills the rabbit at exactly midnight.</p><p>He waits.</p><p>He doesn’t know how long it takes; his brother did this six years ago, but he wasn’t here. All he knows is his brother left with the promise to stop what was tearing apart their home and now he’s here, in his dead brother’s place, doing the same.</p><p>After what might be an instant or might be an eternity he hears it-</p><p>It’s every noise he’s heard, and some he hasn’t, all at once; the rushing of a highway, the jangle and swell of the music during a performance - any performance - all of them - the stampede of feet on a police raid, the trumpeting of an elephant and the laughter of a hyena. The lights, too - brighter than when he’s on stage, every color in the world, and though he squints and covers his face it doesn’t help, swirling around him.</p><p>It stops as suddenly as it started, the roar dying down to a distant hum, the lights resolving themselves into the shape of a glowing fox in the air before him. The fox circles him, grinning, its makeup shifting constantly, sometimes light, sometimes trash, sometimes a strange sort of clown, sometimes a set of images.</p><p>It speaks, sounding like all the sounds around it, the cheer of a crowd and the shout of the ringmaster. He doesn’t know how he understands it, but he does, catches the meaning of this otherworldly language. <strong><span class="font-circus">They say you shouldn’t make a deal in Gotham, you know,</span></strong> it says, and its tail flashes by his face. He tries to turn in the circle, to follow its head, but it moves too fast. <strong><span class="font-circus">You never know what you’ll find. Tell me, O Glorious One, what could the child of a seer ask from me?</span></strong></p><p>The fox stops in its turning before him, it’s face so near to his he’s afraid to breathe. <strong><span class="font-circus">Which one are you,</span> it asks, <span class="font-circus">Jerome or Jeremiah?</span></strong> It laughs, or at least he thinks it does. He hears the shriek of a hyena, the scream of a fox, the bubble of a drunken crowd, rising into a cackle. <strong><span class="font-circus">Oh! </span></strong> it exclaims, and leaps back. <strong><span class="font-circus">But you <em>must</em> be Jeremiah! How silly of me to forget!</span> </strong></p><p>Instead of the fox he sees his brother, skin too pale and hair a strange green, looking at him over his shoulder with a crooked smile just a bit too broad. The creature turns and spreads its arms, tilts itself downward in a bow.<strong><span class="font-circus"> I already took one of you!</span></strong></p><p>It unfolds itself, turns on its heel, sing-songing, <strong><span class="font-circus">Jerome or Jeremiah, Jerome or Jeremiah, Jerome or Jeremiah.</span></strong></p><p>His heart is pounding, but he finds enough courage to speak, “you were the one my brother found.”</p><p><strong><span class="font-circus">Of course I was!</span></strong> It dances on its heels in a circle around him, its head always facing him with that grotesque grin, body shifting underneath it. <strong><span class="font-circus">There’s only so many of us in a city, you know! Strigida has no need, and Barbatos has no fun.</span></strong></p><p>“What are you,” he whispers.</p><p>The creature freezes in its dancing for an instant, then explodes into its chaos of color and light. <strong><span class="font-circus">I am chaos. I am disorder. I am the artist’s happy mistake. I am the wild joy of a child, and the uncontained rage of the sea. I am car accidents and gambling wins. I am the chance you take and the choices you make.</span></strong> From the chaos swirls forth a mostly human being, limbs too fluid, face too still, dressed in a brightly colored suit made from shifting images. It bows again, this time with a great flourish, and extends its hand. <strong><span class="font-circus">You may call me the Jok(est)er.</span></strong></p><p>He swallows, wets his lips. “I’ve come to make a deal, Jokester.”</p><p><b>Why am I not surprised?</b> Without even seeming to touch it, the Jokester plucks the elephant from where Jeremiah placed it on the summoning circle. The Jokester tosses it in the air, then one hand, then back, again and again until he swears there’s three Zitkas, all different and all the same, juggled by bone white hands. <strong><span class="font-circus">As it happens, I like your deal! I have an interest in your enemy, my friend. We shall make their lives - well. Perhaps not Hell, exactly!</span></strong> The Jokester laughs again, and then there are seven of it, all juggling Zitka, all laughing with the cackle of a hyena and the rattle of bones. A moment later there’s a single Zitka again, back on the ground. <strong><span class="font-circus">We’ll have some great fun, at least!</span></strong></p><p>The Jokester reaches forward and then there’s only one, though he can feel hands grasping him from all sides, and then there’s no Jokester, only light, and sound, and a smile so wide it hurts.</p>
<hr/><p>It’s not long after that that they make their plans; it’s not long after that that he is arrested for trying to kill Thomas Wayne Jr. </p><p>It’s a longer time before he is sentenced to Arkham, for when he fired the shot he was raving about the man who serves the great horned devil, the Court that takes children to turn them into demon soldiers, and the fox that followed him whenever he was in Gotham before he took its deal. </p><p>It’s not as long as he expects before he meets the doctor who changes everything. </p><p>It’s not long before she drops her keyring and he picks them up to hand them to her, not long before the metal of the hamsa she keeps on it burns his hand and he ignores the sting and smoke. It’s not long before she asks, staring at his hand, if he’s allergic to silver even though they both know the amulet is made from nickel, and he replies with an honest, <strong><span class="font-circus">“No. Never had an allergy in my life.”</span></strong></p><p>It’s not long, perhaps two days, before she comes back, walks into his cell and turns off the camera and says, face almost as pale as his, “tell me the truth. All of it.”</p>
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